waves of boats sailing to Gaza

Three years ago when we sailed, Free Gaza was largely unknown. The original committee of volunteers worked hard for a couple of years before actually even sailing, then were the first to brave isolated waters, no functional live streaming (blocked), and comparatively little media interest.

Amazingly, in retrospect, they made it, then the boat I was on made it, thanks to Free Gaza’s samoud (steadfastness).

Those organizers and original activists also endured threats from Zionist agents, direct threats with calls to they and their family, as well as boat sabotage attempts.

The same Zionist games, sabotages, political maneuverings and threats are being fired at the current Flotilla. The activists on board –the large majority over 40, over 50, a good number Jewish, all trained in non-violence –are being dubbed “violent”, “terrorists” and as some sort of mortal threat to the heavily armed, highly trained Israeli commandos who will be lurking in international or Palestinian waters, likely to try to stop the flotilla as they did one year ago.

The US boat, the Audacity of Hope, “will be open for view, photography, and video. The captain, crew, and passengers on the boat will be available for interviews and inspection. The cargo of the ship – 3,000 letters from Americans to the people of Gaza – will also be available for view, photographs, and video. Everything that will be on the boat when it sets sail, including food and passengers’ personal medications for use during their voyage, will be available for inspection.”

Today the Irish Times reports that the Irish boat, the MV Saoirse, cannot sail now: Fintan Lane, the national co-ordinator of Irish Ship to Gaza organisation, said that the ship would not be able to sail as it had been “dangerously sabotaged”, according to the organising campaign.

He said that the damage to the ship was discovered on Monday night when the captain noticed that there was something wrong. Divers found that a piece was missing from one of the propeller shafts.

“This was the type of sabotage that endangered human life,” Mr Lane said last night. “They put divers under the boat who cut a piece out of the propeller shaft. That means that the damage would have happened gradually and what would have happened eventually is that the propeller would have come up through the bottom of the boat, caused a flood in the engine room and would have caused the boat to sink.”

Until 3 days ago, the The Freedom Flotilla II was composed of two cargo ships and seven passenger boats and would leave from various ports to a meeting point in international waters, from which the boats will sail all together towards Gaza, carrying nearly three thousand tons of aid and hundreds of civilians from dozens of countries, including members of parliament, politicians, writers, artists, journalists and sports figures, as well as representatives of indigenous peoples and various faith groups.

The Flotilla will still sail, despite the sabotage and threat attempts, despite political coercions from weak governments, including my own, despite blatant lies on the intent and cargo of the boats.

And there is need. Political need, to break a political stranglement of Palestinians in Gaza’s abilities, dreams, employment, health, education, lives…

We Palestinians of Gaza want to live at liberty to meet Palestinian friends or family from Tulkarm, Jerusalem or Nazareth; we want to have the right to travel and move freely. We want to live without fear of another bombing campaign that leaves hundreds of our children dead and many more injured or with cancers from the contamination of Israel’s white phosphorous and chemical warfare. We want to live without the humiliations at Israeli checkpoints or the indignity of not providing for our families because of the unemployment brought about by the economic control and the illegal siege. We are calling for an end to the racism that underpins all this oppression.

We ask: when will the world’s countries act according to the basic premise that people should be treated equally, regardless of their origin, ethnicity or colour – is it so far-fetched that a Palestinian child deserves the same human rights as any other child in the world? Will you be able to look back and say you stood on the right side of history or will you have sided with the oppressor?

We, therefore, call on the international community to take up its responsibility to protect the Palestinian people from Israel’s heinous aggression, immediately ending the siege with full compensation for the destruction of life and infrastructure visited upon us by this explicit policy of collective punishment. Nothing whatsoever justifies the intentional policies of savagery, including the severing of access to the water and electricity supply to 1.5 million people. The international conspiracy of silence towards the slow genocide taking place against the more than 1.5 million civilians in Gaza, more than 50 per cent of whom are children under the age of 15, indicates complicity in these war crimes.

We also call upon all Palestine solidarity groups and all international civil society organizations to demand:

– An end to the siege that has been imposed on the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a result of their exercise of democratic choice.

– The protection of civilian lives and property, as stipulated in International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law such as The Fourth Geneva Convention.

– The immediate release of all political prisoners.

– That Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip be immediately provided with financial and material support to cope with the immense hardship that they are experiencing.

– An end to occupation, Apartheid and other war crimes.

– Immediate reparations and compensation for all destruction carried out by the Israeli Occupation Forces in the Gaza Strip.

-The permanent opening and free movement of Palestinians through the Rafah Crossing

-An endorsement of the Boycott Divest and Sanctions Campaign; join the many International Trade Unions, Universities, Supermarkets and artists and writers who refuse to entertain Apartheid Israel. Speak out for Palestine, for Gaza, and crucially ACT. The time is now.

International Journalism Award From Mexican Press Club March 2017

about me

Eva Bartlett is an independent writer and rights activist with extensive experience in Syria and in the Gaza Strip, where she lived a cumulative three years (from late 2008 to early 2013). She documented the 2008/9 and 2012 Israeli war crimes and attacks on Gaza while riding in ambulances and reporting from hospitals.
Since April 2014, she has visited Syria 7 times, including two months in summer 2016 and one month in Oct/Nov 2016 and her latest visit in June 2017 (to Aleppo, Homs, al-Waer, Madaya, al-Tall, Damascus).
Her early visits included interviewing residents of the Old City of Homs, which had just been secured from militants, and visiting historic Maaloula after the Aramaic village had been liberated of militants. In December 2015, Eva returned to old Homs to find life returning, small shops opened, some of the damaged historic churches holding worship anew, and citizens preparing to celebrate Christmas once again.
On her 5th visit in June-August 2016, she went twice to Aleppo, also visiting Palmyra, Masyaf, Jableh, Tartous, and Barzeh district of Damascus, as well as returning again to Maaloula and Latakia.
On her sixth visit to Syria, in October and November, she visited Aleppo twice more, as well as areas around Damascus. The testimonies Eva gathered in Aleppo starkly contrasted narratives corporate media had been asserting.
Many of her published Syria writings, videos, photos can be found at this link:
https://ingaza.wordpress.com/syria/